


The Perfumed Garden

by StudyOfTheBrain



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: BDSM, Catlock, D/s, Dirty Talk, Dominance, Dominant John, Kink Discovery, Kitty play, M/M, Masturbation, Oral Sex, Orgasm Denial, Pet Play, Rimming, Spanking, Submission, handjobs, submissive Sherlock
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-07-23
Updated: 2013-08-27
Packaged: 2017-12-21 04:22:35
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 16,270
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/895774
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StudyOfTheBrain/pseuds/StudyOfTheBrain
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John is shameful and he hates it. He feels the hot, hard touch of metal in everything. He’s always smelling sweat and tasting blood. It makes him warm. It excites him everywhere.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is loosely based off a roleplay I did several months ago. I was dissatisfied with the lack of fics relating to my kink so I made my own. There's some sort of explicit content in this first chapter, but I intend for the bulk of this to be an exploration of sexuality. High-class pornography is my goal here. I should mention this will be multi-chapter (it didn't say this at first, so I'm sorry if you came here thinking this was a oneshot).

For John, every act is an expression of war. 

Sherlock loads him into a gun. John’s hot in his hand. Pow.

John is shameful and he hates it. He feels the hot, hard touch of metal in everything. He’s always smelling sweat and tasting blood. It makes him warm. It excites him everywhere.

He felt it before at a crime scene. The girl’s face is in the dirt and her ass is in the air and as John walks around her he sees that her pink and yellow dress is pulled up so that it collects in a bunch by her shoulders blades. She’s got white knickers on with these ghastly little frills around the elastic band and leg holes that make her look as if she’s dressed like a child. Her wrists are tied to her ankles. The rope is white. They keep her in that position for pictures and the cameras assault her with flashes of light. In a few weeks when this goes to court it will serve as damning evidence, but right now it looks uncannily like a pornographic video that John saw and enjoyed on the internet and the parallel strikes him as grotesque. 

Sherlock smokes a cigarette in the flat and John threatens to choke him. Sherlock says, _”You’d like that, wouldn’t you?”_ and John doesn’t deny it.

A dominatrix flirts with Sherlock and John is so angry that he thinks he’s going to be ill.

“Be careful,” he advises. “People will say we’re in love.”

Since when hadn’t they?

John’s masturbating in the shower. He’s thinking about making Sherlock suck his cock and imagining that Sherlock likes it. _I’m filthy._

Sherlock’s as moody as Virginia Woolf and John imagines stuffing a sock in his mouth. _I’m disgusting._

It’s the middle of the night and Sherlock’s naked feet are slapping against the floor. He’s walking so heavily that his footsteps thump and bump through the walls and he must be doing it on purpose, he must, because John can hear him all the way upstairs. Through the concrete, through his bed, through the pillow folded over his ears, he’s playing the violin, he’s clanging pots and pans. 

John’s feeling like a million degrees centigrade. 

He’s looking at pictures of women on leashes. They’re eating out of dog bowls on the floor. _I’m a pervert._

The violin only stops when John takes it by the neck and pulls it out of Sherlock’s hands, the bow sliding along the strings with a screech. Sherlock spins and reaches for it, making groping, grabby hands. 

“That instrument costs more than every one of your belongings!” he snarled. He wore an expression like he thought John was the most unreasonable man in the world. The audacity of it made John want to scream. 

He roared, “You’re not the only one who lives here, Sherlock!”

As if it were obvious, Sherlock scoffed and retorted, “No, but I’m the only one who matters.” He took the instrument right from John’s hand and looked at it a bit, almost dreamily, then locked it between his chin and shoulder. He turned his back to John and sawed his arm to play offensive, nonsense notes.

It ‘s been so long since John lost his temper, really lost it. So long he can’t remember, but he’s so angry that he can’t remember anything, past or future. He’s wedged into a forever and helpless now, a seething and sleepless now. 

His fists clenched. _”Sherlock!”_ he called, his voice loud and coarse. Everything was at one volume. “Don’t ignore me! Turn around when I talk to you!” He took a step forward and his foot landed on a loose sheet of music. The violin is humming now, as if Sherlock is trying to lull him into calmness. John resents the attempt. 

"I'm--" The doctor grabbed Sherlock's shoulder and spun turned him around. "--bloody talking to you!" He took the violin out of Sherlock's hand and tossed it on the sofa, only distantly considerate enough to not damage the instrument.

Sherlock watched the violin with the abject horror of a mother watching her child be thrown across a room. To his relief, it landed with complete grace. He glowered at John, shrugging the hand off his shoulder. He picked up his wallet from the coffee table, shoving his debit card into John's hands. "There.” He spit venom. “Go get a bloody hotel room for the night. You obviously have run out of women to share a....sofa with." His gaze darted to the sofa, then back to John with accusing smugness. 

For a moment he lost himself. His mind had gone black with an emotion he hadn't felt for some time, since adolescence—no, perhaps later in his life when he was infected with restlessness, the heat of young adulthood. Loving and loathing testosterone. He took a step towards Sherlock and the sheet of musical notation stuck to the bottom of his foot. The above light of the kitchen made Sherlock look dark, cloaked in long drapes of heavy shadow. It was the silence before a supernova. 

John was snatching up Sherlock's wrists and holding them painfully tight behind the detective's back, bending him over the kitchen table. "What did you say to me?!" he snarled down at Sherlock. Without the violin to muffle him, his voice was incredibly loud now with the grit of sandpaper. "Say it again, I dare you!"

Sherlock arched back against him, lifting his chest as if trying to throw the other man off. His arms ached and strained behind his back. Sherlock kicked his leg back, trying to thrust his foot into John’s knee, but the position opened him to John’s leg slipping between his, his knee coming up and striking him hard in the testicles. He cried out, face flushed against the table, his body rolling and twisting and bent at the waist over the table. Sherlock pushed back and John pushed forward, their bodies involved in a perpendicular dance. Beneath John’s grasp, Sherlock turned as much as he could and looked up at him. 

_"I said..._ ” His hips rocked back, tilted up, fingers furled and unfurled like a flower. “If you can't simply put on a pair of earplugs to get your precious 8 hours of sleep, then you best go find a nice woman who can tolerate your company for 8 consecutive hours, asleep though you may be."

John shoved Sherlock harder against the table, hearing the air forced out of his lungs. It was hot inside his clothing. Sherlock’s back arched, serpentine. "You selfish fucking prat," he seethed. "You think you're the only person in the entire world who matters."

Sherlock’s leg spread a bit and John prepared himself for another backwards kick. It never came and Sherlock stood in place. "Fine," he answered. “Fine, let me up.” 

His voice was breathy. "Why should I? Why should I do anything for you?" John felt merciless. He wanted to do horrible things to Sherlock, to make him feel as terrible as Sherlock made him feel. The other John had died and he was wearing his skin. That nice man. 

"John, you're hurting me.”

Something fluttered inside John. It was a whisper of enjoyment that crossed over him and settled itself inside his bones. He chewed on his bottom lip in thought for a moment before answering, "Yeah...yeah, I am hurting you." He held the detective's arms tight and pressed him hard and flat against the table with his body, bending over Sherlock's back. He could feel the other man’s pulse in the vein on his wrist. "I don't care. You hurt me every day. I don't care if I hurt you."

For a beat, Sherlock grew rigid beneath him, but he melted and flattened against the table. Through his dressing gown, John could see the sharp angles of his shoulder blades lowering and widening, his body becoming loose and passive. John couldn’t tell this was an act of surrender or not.

Sherlock’s eyes are closed. His long, black lashes brush against his skin. His mouth is open and he moans when John presses down on him. _I’m sick._

“John?”

John’s erection is pressing into Sherlock’s backside, right into the crack of his arse. His pyjama bottoms hide nothing, betray everything and John’s so fucking hard that if Sherlock moves again he’s going to go off, boom, just like stepping an a land mine. He shuddered and it was so powerful that there was no way Sherlock didn’t feel it as it made electric pathways from John’s chest and culminated in his groin with an uncontrollable upward pulse. He held the position for a moment, eyes closed, arms tensed, breathing stuttering in his chest, before he released Sherlock's wrists and took a step back. He leaned against the kitchen counter, panting heavily, his cheeks red.

Sherlock hesitated, keeping himself there against the table for a moment, then raised up to his full height, looking ruffled and pink with something, maybe humiliation, maybe something else. He swung the dressing gown over his waist. "Good night, John."

John stood alone in the kitchen and wiped the sweat off his brow. He let out a hard breath of air. He asked to no one, "What just happened?"


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for the kudos and bookmarks everyone. While this entire story is sexual, it should get increasingly explicit from here on out. Tell me if you enjoy it, I suppose?

Sometimes everything feels sexual to John and he wonders if his skull is transparent and people are seeing the filth that lies within. Something about bondage will pop on the telly or in conversation and he feels as if everyone in the room is looking at him; someone says _sex kitten_ and he’s terrified that they know exactly what he’s thinking what they say that.

They’re all thoughts, no action. All of his wars had been literal. He’d shot, been shot, killed, come close to being killed. Once when John was in uni he asked a girlfriend if he could choke her during sex. She said yes, but acted bored with it, not a spark, not a moan, nothing, and he never asked her to do it again. 

He thinks about Sherlock. He thinks about his cock pressed hard into the cleft of Sherlock’s arse. He thinks about Sherlock pressing back against him, that rolling arch of his back lifting towards him so that he looks feline, he looks needy and wanting. When John realises that he’s imagining Sherlock wanting it, asking for it, he struggles not to vomit. _How could you? How could you even think that? How could you?_

He thinks about the low baritone of Sherlock’s voice. Lips plump and flushed pink. Long violinist’s fingers that stretch and curl beneath the clutch of John’s hand. Sherlock says John’s name from a position of submission and two days later he’s masturbating violently to this thought, too hot and randy to care about the moral implications. 

He’s wanking to his flatmate. He’s masturbating over his friend. He’s calling him a stupid cunt, a fucking worthless whore, and Sherlock likes it, yes, he likes it so much. 

John spills over onto his hand and before his orgasm is even over he’s thinking _oh my god, oh my god, what have I done?_

It feels as if Sherlock knows and John avoids him except for brief, necessary conversation for the next few days. They don’t talk about what happened in the kitchen, but John didn’t expect them to. Sherlock goes back to his work and only talks to John when he needs something. 

He comes onto his fist and tells himself _I’m not doing this anymore. I don’t want to do this,_ but Sherlock is playing with chemicals in the sitting area and the entire place smells like melting plastic and John imagines making him say sorry on his hands and knees. Sherlock leaves the flat in a state of utter chaotic disaster and John thinks about making him sleep at in a little curled ball at the foot of his own bed while John enjoys his fresh sheets. 

His life is fantasy. His brain is threatening to spill out into reality. 

When John came home from the surgery he was tired, his back hurt, and someone had thrown up on him. He could tell something was wrong from the moment he began to unlock the door. The hallway was filled with the smoky aroma of skunk. It was worse when he went inside.

Sherlock had spent the day at home, churning in his own chaos. An entire shelf of books had been destroyed, giant handfuls of pages torn out tossed around like a dog had gotten into them. John could imagine Sherlock doing this, his small, pointed features bunched up in rage as he tore big handfuls from an atlas, a book of constellations, _Gray’s Anatomy_. He was sitting at the kitchen table, the light above him blindingly white and making his skin look like carved marble. There was a white bit of paper between his fingers and he rolled it round and round and round itself. "John," he greeted.

"What the hell is this?" he asked. The smell singed his nostrils. "Are you-- you're seriously smoking weed in here?" 

"Could’ve done this. Could’ve killed myself instead. Seemed easier." He flicked the end of his lighter and the flame stood from the end of it. There were empty beakers in a cardboard box beside him. A selection of surgical tools in front of him. It looked as if he had used a scalpel to open a cigar; there were earth-coloured flakes of tobacco all around the table, on the floor. "Don't give me a look like that; honestly I could have done drugs far worse than a little weed." He held the joint between his fingers. "Well, worse as far as you're concerned. But very nice for me, they would've been."

John clenched his jaw and the muscles tensed beneath his skin. He glanced around the flat. "It looks like a bloody animal came through here!" he cried. "Can't you go a _day_ without making life difficult for me?!"

"An animal did come through, John," Sherlock mused. " _Animus,_ mine." He seemed bored, depressed even. Something loose jangled around inside his brain. John could almost hear it when he moved. 

Something hot and unnameable was burning in every crevice, every bone and joint, in his tear ducts and fingernails--charring him with so much rage that he thought he could die with it. He put his hand on Sherlock's shoulder, his body steady, slow and terse. "You have three seconds," he began, struggling to control his voice which was low, barely contained, "to put that away and get to cleaning."

Sherlock didn't look at him, but counted for John instead. "One, two, three,” his voice droned.

There were about two additional seconds of calm before John simply broke and swept everything of Sherlock's off the table with one long stroke of his hands. The glass, the knives, the drugs, the papers—everything that have made a clearing around Sherlock and his entitlement thrown to the floor. Sherlock looked up at him, almond-shaped eyes wide and his lips parted as if he might say something, but John was grabbing him by the hair and forcing his face against the table. His hands came to the edge of the table as if to lift himself up and John tugged the handful forward. Caught in his chair, Sherlock made a sound between a groan and a scream.

_"Drop it,"_ John commanded. "Drop it or this entire handful comes out."

The rolled bit of paper and herb fell to the kitchen floor. Sherlock’s hands came up a few inches as if to grasp at John’s, to scratch at his wrist, but he did nothing. “John, let go of my hair.”

His voice sounding breathy, he asked, “Why? Why should I?” The question was more genuine than he had intended. 

Sherlock knew how to fight and so did John; John learned from his training, Sherlock learned from necessity. Standing there, arm extended and holding Sherlock as if he were a pony and his hair was the reigns, John could see two, four, six moves that would have broken his hand, his arm, his kneecap. Sherlock must have seen them, too. He didn’t make a single one.

Again, he said, “Let go, John.”

John.

He tilted his wrist up and Sherlock made a sound of pain as his hair was pulled. Precious dark locks. John owned them. He owned that pain, too.

_John._

Sherlock’s hand came back and touched John’s knee. Lithe, skeleton fingers against his leg, Sherlock’s pretty features sparkling under the kitchen light, bright as the moon. He was looking at John’s trousers, his ghastly work clothes that he hated but had to wear, seeing the hard, unmistakable evidence of his enjoyment through the fabric. His fingers moved on his knee. His lips parted.

_”John.”_

John released him. “I’m sorry,” he was saying absently, as if his mouth was saying it but his brain wasn’t. “I’m sorry.”

He disappeared up the stairs into his room. Somewhere else in the flat Sherlock was saying, _John._

 

John sat on the edge of his bed, elbows on his knees, palms pressed into his eyes. Spots of colour appeared on the blackness of his inner eyelids, appearing and disappearing like little faeries. He could have been sleeping, recharging for work, or even having a wank, but he didn’t. He thought about Sherlock's sounds of pain, the tensing, tightening muscles of his back and arms, how his voice softened with shame as he asked—John may have even allowed himself to imagine begged--for John to release him, his beautiful hair. His stomach soured with embarrassment but the images and the burn of shame came, again and again. Sherlock’s eyes looking at the stiff line of his prick in his trousers. Sherlock’s hand squeezing his knee with the tenderness of a lover. Sherlock.

An alert from his phone jarred him.

John, I need some tea. SH

Get it yourself. JW

Busy. SH

So am I. JW

John realised that he was doing exactly what Sherlock wanted and made an audible sound of annoyance at himself. Sherlock was dragging him on a leash. But hadn’t he always? Hadn’t John always enjoyed it? The text alert sound came again, sound high and sharp through the heavy clouds of his mood.

No you aren't. You're sitting in your room, wondering if I've forgiven you for what you did. Tea will guarantee my cooperation. If you bring it now. SH

You're absolutely mad. I don't need your forgiveness. You need MY forgiveness. I'm not doing anything for you. JW

I haven't done anything that needs forgiving. SH

I should come in there and slap you in the face just for saying that. JW

I'm sorry? SH

The way you treat me is unacceptable, you take advantage of my kindness, and you are the most selfish, careless person I have ever known. I should honestly come in there and give you your share of the suffering, you sure deserve it. JW

I don’t have any doubt you would enjoy that. SH

The terror of that statement struck him like an arrow through his gut. If there had been any doubt, and there had been little, that Sherlock was acutely aware of John’s desires then it was stripped away at that moment. He imagined that Sherlock was dangling this knowledge in front of his face like a person taunting a cat with a toy. The bell bounces. John swats his paw. Obedient house pet.

Downstairs, Sherlock isn’t in the kitchen or lying contemplatively about the sofa. He’s retreated into his room like a snake hiding in a burrow and John doesn’t even knock before he opens the door.

"Knocking is always an option, John," he said, and his voice is like a purr. It’s as low as a cello. He eels himself into a sitting position on his bed, body long and nimble.

John ignored Sherlock's comment. "Do you _like_ making me miserable? Do you _like_ hurting me?" And then the words are coming so quickly, ejecting themselves from his throat like a swarm of bees, "Do you like making me want to hurt you?" It sounds barbaric. It sounds childish. It sounds like something an abusive husband would ask his wife before he beats her and something sick rising in the back of his throat at this thought. Sherlock tilts his head at him. He looks like a fox.

"You want to hurt me, John?" It sounded confused. Or amused. John couldn’t tell which.

Taking a shaky breath, his fists go into his pockets so Sherlock won’t see him clenching and unclenching them. John admitted, "No more than the average person I suppose." Fists open, fists closed. "Can you blame me? You’ve been so…intolerable lately."

He answered, “Aren’t I always?”

The question actually seems legitimate, as if Sherlock is admitting this to him, but John knows better. “What’s the matter, your parents not give you a spanking as a lad? Lack of childhood discipline not prepare you for adulthood?” 

Sherlock’s tongue makes an appearance swiping across his small, white teeth. The corners of his mouth spread and turn upward. His eyes look large. “Perhaps.”

"Stop taunting me,” John warned, “or I'll do it, I really will.” He took a single step forward, the gap between them narrowing. The sound of his shoe on the wooden floor is heavy and hollow. 

Sherlock sat on his bed, not rising to meet John's challenging posture. His eyes swept from John’s shoes up to his face, his mouth open gently. Sherlock’s hands were flat on the mattress of his bed, locking his arms in place and pushing his chest upwards. John could see the fabric of his shirt tightening around the expanse of his chest as he moved, the gesture so slow and deliberate that it was like watching a film in slow motion. “Please,” he invited, and John swears, positively swears, that Sherlock is tilting one of those high, sharp cheekbones towards him, offering it to him. “I welcome it, _John._ ”

Before he knows what he’s doing, John’s pulling his hand back. If Sherlock notices this he doesn’t flinch, just stays with his cheeks angled towards him, either taunting or encouraging him, John doesn’t know. His open hand cut through the air and struck Sherlock across his right cheek with a sound like a crack. Sherlock turns, his hands still pressed hard into the bed only now his fingers are curling into the blankets. It doesn’t even feel good, John realises. 

“I’m—oh my god, Sherlock, I’m so sorry, I thought—you asked me, and I…”

Sherlock interrupts him. His head turned back so quickly that his curls bounce, his eyes are sharp and fierce. The tendons on his neck stand out like lines of steel. “Again!” he cried. “You bloody idiot, do it again!”

It happens so fast, John has no time to think, just react. He slaps Sherlock again and the man reels, he gasps, he makes this low, throaty groan and he shudders so hard that it runs through him like an electric shock. This time, it does feel good. The sting of Sherlock’s face echoes in John’s palm. When Sherlock looks at him again, his cheek is pink. He’s panting.

Sherlock has to swallow before he repeats, his voice lower this time, “Again.”

And John obliges him, pulling his arm back high and bringing it down so hard that he feels something wet on his fingers and it takes him a moment to realise that he’s split Sherlock’s lip open. The other man moans out the words, “Oh, _god!_ ” and it’s so overwhelmingly sexual that John knows he’ll have to stop now or else he’ll never stop, not ever.

Chest heaving, Sherlock looks up at him. He tastes the blood on his lip with the tip of his tongue. “I apologise for disrespecting you, John,” he said. The blush where he’d been struck was deepening, turning dark pink and red. 

John put his hands to his side. He was practically trembling at the sound of Sherlock's voice and the weakness that lingered there. "I...I shouldn't have..."

Sherlock made a sputtering sound as if what John had been trying to say was immensely stupid and annoying. He seemed to collect himself, taking a breath and answering, "If it's what you must do to keep me in line, John, then it's understandable."

It took John a moment to speak again. “You enjoyed it,” he said finally.

“Obviously.” And then, he voice as smooth as silk, he said, “And so did you.”

John looked at his hand. The palm was bright red. 

“I did.”


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sherlock and John have a discussion about their interests. As it so happens, this discussion doesn't last very long.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to everyone who subscribed, commented, and gave kudos. Hopefully this will satisfy you until the next time I update.

It takes John by surprise when Sherlock behaves for the rest of the week. Their flat is in pristine condition, even better than when they first moved in and Sherlock was still making an attempt to impress him, and John even came home late from the surgery one night to see that Sherlock had set out tea for him. It occurred to him that no one had been that nice to him in years. The thought hurt, but it felt good, too. 

There’s a dark bruise across Sherlock’s cheek, all sorts of purple and yellow and blue like a ribbon on his face. When John looks at it he feels his hand buzz. Sherlock’s pain is a limb that’s been removed from John’s body, amputated suffering. He can still feel it. 

Sherlock says _good morning_ and _good night_ and _how are you today, John?_ , and John’s all smiles. He’s never been better, not in his entire life.

Eleven o’clock at night and Sherlock talks loudly to himself, all his brilliance spilling out of his mouth and into the open air. John tells him to go to bed and he grumbles and gripes and pouts but for some reason he does it. _That’s a good boy._

Sherlock says something childish and cruel and John makes him say, “I’m sorry, John.” The way his pretty features crumple and twitch in embarrassment somehow make him more pathetic and more beautiful all at once. The short leash looks so fucking good on him. 

The new power feels good, cool and crisp all over his skin, and he wears it like a finely tailored suit. People at work tell him that he looks happy. He combs his hair differently and flirts with the new, young receptionist at the surgery. She denies his advances and it doesn’t bother him, not for one second. John even went to the cinema all by himself, no date, no woman, no nothing, enjoying his own company for the sake of it. How long had it been since he’d spent time with himself and not deeply regretted it afterwards? 

It was about ten-thirty when he returned to the flat, feeling properly tired, the sort where he knew that sleep would sink into his bones and leave him feeling renewed afterwards. Sometimes sleep left him feeling clean and new like a reptile that had just shed its old skin. He didn’t remember last time sleep had felt like that. 

Sherlock was lying on the sofa, his entire body one long, slender line from head to toe, his ankles propped up on the armrest. The gears in his head turned quietly. Without even looking at him, Sherlock asked, “Where have you been?”

The question took him by surprise. “Erm, I went out for a bit, why?”

“Didn’t know you were going out.”

There’s a bit of silence between them. John was halfway out of his jacket and he stopped the motion entirely as if to process what Sherlock said. “Since when do I have to tell you something like that? I didn’t realise you were my mother.”

“I like to know where you are.”

John laughed openly. “Now _that’s_ a bloody lie.”

Sherlock doesn’t even bother to hide the fact that John’s caught him. He’s tossing John like a ball, throwing him into the air and catching him, bouncing him off the walls. His mouth spread into a grin so slowly that it was like watching honey pool on a hard surface. “Are you angry with me, John?”

He placed his hands on the back of the chair where he normally sat and rested. Across from him Sherlock looks up at the ceiling, his fingers steepled together so the longest digits brush against his bottom lip thoughtfully. “No, but I think you’re trying to rile me up on purpose.”

“Oh?”

“Yes. I think you’re…looking for something. I think you want me to do something.”

Sherlock raises up, bending his torso at the waist so he looks like Bela Lugosi rising form a coffin, and plants his feet on the ground. John’s seen him take this pose before, elbows on his knees, leaning forward so that he looks like a spider sitting in the middle of a web. He won’t come to John, the both of them know, John will come to him. “Oh, let’s stop dancing around it, shall we? You like to hurt and I like to be hurt. A mutual giving and taking of suffering. Something like poetic, isn’t it?”

“You obviously don’t think so,” John replied. It felt like the strength had been sucked out of him, like Sherlock had snatched it right out of the air. 

He answered, “I’d prefer to think of it as a business exchange.”

John bristled internally. “I’d rather not.”

Sherlock tilted his head, the movement so quick and sharp that it was almost as if he was trying to snap his own neck. “And how do you expect to think of it? Do you imagine us together holding hands and being gentle?”

“I want something exclusive.”

The other scoffed, the sound venomous. “As if I would let anyone else know about this foul habit.” When John didn’t immediately reply, he snapped, “Well, let’s get on with it. Tell me what things you want to do.”

“What?”

“To _me,_ what things are you looking to do to me?” John opened his mouth to say vaguely that he didn’t know but Sherlock stopped him before the sound even creaked out of his throat. “No! Don’t say silent to protect your ego. If you’re too embarrassed to talk about it how can you be expected to do it?”

It felt very much like Sherlock was quizzing him on his own interests, as if there was a timer somewhere that would ring in their ears and that would be it, no more talking. “Fine! I…hitting! I like hitting.”

“What sort? Open hand? Fist? In the face, torso? I need specifics.”

John answered, exasperated, “Slapping. In the face. I like…spanking, too.”

Sherlock laughed quietly but continued, “What else?”

“I don’t know. Bondage, tying the wrists together, to furniture. Legs, too.” Sherlock stroked his fingers over his lips as if considering this but said nothing else. John continued, his voice picking up a bit, getting a bit of confidence behind it, “I like submission. I like the idea of you being subservient to me. Admitting that you’re lesser than me.”

Sherlock laughed at this too, but it was drier and more condescending. “Quite right.”

“You asked me,” he returned, his belly burning with coals of embarrassment. “This is what I want.”

Sherlock’s tongue swiped over his bottom lip. John could almost see him envisioning this, using that grand and beautiful mind for visions of perversion. “What does that entail, exactly? Submission to you.”

He shrugged. “Depends.”

“Oh?”

With a sigh, John gathered himself, his fingers curling hard around the back of the chair. “I’m not going to pretend this isn’t sexual for me. If you want to just do the other stuff then fine, but I think it’s fair for you to know that I want something…” He grasped for the words inside his brain and returned empty-handed. “…I want something more than just pointlessly berating you.” John stepped away from the chair and shoved his hands into his pockets, unsure of what to do with them. 

Sherlock was quiet for a moment. He was looking down, looking at nothing, his eyes moving only with the ticking of his brain. “This is like foreplay for you, isn’t it?” he asked. John didn’t answer and Sherlock didn’t ask him again. He continued, “And what sort of sexual acts are you interested in performing on me?” He seemed to amend this. “With me?”

Hardly missing a beat, John said, “I want you to suck my cock.”

“Forward.”

“You asked.” John took a small step forward, closing the distance between them just barely. “And what about you?”

“I get sexual gratification from it, if that’s what you’re asking.” Sherlock said this in a low voice, as if perhaps he wished it were otherwise. But then he huffed, a big, bratty sigh, as if dismissing this notion entirely. “Fine. Basic bondage, a few…slaps to my face, and maybe I’ll perform oral sex on you, whatever.” This begrudging narration was accompanied by a flick of his wrist. _Whatever._ “It’s not as if you’re asking for anything out of the ordinary. I’m more surprised that you didn’t just find a woman to do this for you.”

Another slow, deliberate step forward shortened the gap even further. “I’ve tried,” he said. “I guess I can be…rough, I s’pose.” 

They were only about a metre apart now. Sherlock’s eyes shifted dangerously from John’s face downwards, looking at his shoes, riding the lines of his body with his gaze back upwards again. His posture changed, his body seeming to straighten and elongate itself, and John was vaguely reminded of an animal presenting its belly to another, a bird in a mating dance. Sherlock was smiling again, that molasses grin. “You, rough?” he quipped. John said yes. Sherlock’s teeth were small and white and sinister in his mouth. “Prove it.”

John hesitates. Sherlock looks up at him with his head cocked to the side, his mouth pulled into a Cheshire smile. The entire world seems to go silent. John’s been dunked underwater. John’s been ejected into space. The top button of Sherlock’s white shirt is open and his chest is smooth and slender beneath the fabric, cotton stretched tight over his pectorals, back erect and spine so gently curved towards John. He’s made out of ice, carved out of winter. John’s on fire. 

After a long step forward that put them within inches of each other John’s hand grasped a fistful of Sherlock’s dark, thick curls, taking him like he might take a dog by its leash, and he pulled the man’s face against his groin, his nose pressed into the stiff fabric of his jeans. Sherlock’s hands went up and out as if to catch himself on something, maybe John’s hips, but John was already scolding him, “Hands behind your back.” Elbows to wrists, Sherlock was the picture of perfect compliance. 

Somehow molten lava had been injected into John’s veins. He felt like a thunderstorm. He felt like a hurricane. Sherlock flittered like a leaf against him, privy to the wind of John’s desire. He could feel Sherlock’s open mouth through his trousers, the dulled sensation of movement through the denim that forced every blood vessel to do a direct u-turn and pulse into his prick. Sherlock’s eyes were half-lidded as he mouthed aimlessly, his lips moving as if he was trying to kiss John through his clothing. 

“Have you ever done this before?” John asked, his voice breathy and heavy. 

Sherlock shook his head as much as the hand on him would allow. “No.”

The answer didn’t surprise him and something disgusting inside him smiles broadly at the fact that he’s taking the virginity of Sherlock’s mouth. The material of his jeans tents from the pressure of his hardness and John can feel Sherlock’s licks and kisses become more concentrated, mouth moving along the hard line of his cock. Small, breathy gasps keep coming out of Sherlock’s open mouth, riding his tongue with little hiccups of surprise. 

John unzipped his trousers and let his half-hard cock pop through the open vee. With his hand in Sherlock’s hair, holding onto it like it was the reigns on a horse, he guided the other’s mouth along it, encouraging him to envelope the clothed hardness with his lips. 

“Smell it,” John ordered, the air hissing coolly through his teeth with the command. He was pressing Sherlock’s nose into it, into the smell of his sex, forcing him to inhale it like he was an animal smelling his own mess. The open mouth was so hot and wet on him, even through the fabric, that John could actually feel himself stiffening, each pulse of his heart echoing in the length of his cock, thickening him, lengthening him. God, he thinks, it’s been so long since he’s gotten head, and even his last sexual encounters precluded this entirely, and now Sherlock’s sniffing at his crotch like a fucking animal, mouthing at him and sucking his precome from the fabric of his pants, and John just can’t wait to get inside. 

When he finally pulls his cock out, the organ exposed to the space between them, he tugs Sherlock’s head back so he can look at it. The large eyes dart between the thing in front of him and John’s expression and for once the greatest know-it-all on the planet looks lost and confused. 

“I don’t know how to do it,” he confessed. Somehow this doesn’t sound shameful as it comes out of his mouth. The genius who knew nothing. 

John instructed him, _”open up”_ and Sherlock obliged, slowly parting his plump, bowed lips so that the movement made an almost inaudible wet sound. The head of his prick, shiny with the fluid of his anticipation, passed the barrier of Sherlock’s lips and settled on his tongue, wrapped in perfect warmth and wetness. John groaned openly, using his free hand under Sherlock’s chin to pry his jaw open further, his cock looking thick and obscene in his mouth. Sherlock made a sound onto it, a little moan, and the vibrations travelled into his body by virtue of his hardened length. It was so incredibly erotic that John wanted to just die, just fucking die. 

He kicked his hips forward and his prick went into the back of Sherlock’s throat, the other man’s chest heaving in response, the column of muscle tightening around John’s cock. He tugged his hips back, looking down at the exchange between his body and Sherlock’s, his sex coated in wetness, and pulsed back inside again, establishing a slow but steady rhythm. John’s grip moved to the sides of Sherlock’s head, steadying him as he widened his stance, then helplessly bucked into his mouth. 

John groaned, using Sherlock’s mouth and throat like they were part of a sex toy, like they didn’t even belong to him, like they were all part of John’s domain now. Sherlock kept his hands tight and useless behind his back, eyes staring wide and blank into John’s pubic hair, accepting John entirely, even as he increased the speed of his thrusts to keep up with the demand of his body. That mouth which had spouted brilliance in all areas of human achievement, had transported a massive, unfathomable intellect from the confines of his brain into spoken language, which had insulted and teased and prodded at him was now being totally, hopelessly fucked, useless except for the pleasure it could bring the better, dominant partner. 

“You fucking like that,” John snarled, gazing down at Sherlock’s reddening lips, the push and pull of his erection between them. “Is this how I can shut you up? By fucking your pretty face?”

Sherlock’s eyes rolled and closed and he moaned openly. He seemed to make a little sound, a tiny, slutty _mhm_ in response to the abuse, his jaw going completely slack as he let himself be used. 

The waves of pleasure were hot in his belly, swelling and sloshing like a rising tide. “Oh, _fuck,_ ” he gasped, using his grip to move Sherlock’s head in tandem with his thrusts, pushing down as he thrust up, pulling back as he did. John’s moaning grew louder, higher, more desperate, until he was holding Sherlock’s face down into his groin, spilling out inside him. Sherlock gagged, fought against the hand on the back of his head, and John allowed him to pull back just a bit as his orgasm ripped through him. 

“Swallow it,” he ordered, his voice gruff and breathy. “Fucking swallow it.”

He could hear the sloshing, wet sounds of his partner taking his come into his stomach, swallowing a total of three times before John released him, gasping. Sherlock fell back against the couch, catching his breath, his mouth red from use. John’s penis was softening against his jeans, his legs threatening to give out. It was so much better than his hand. He might never go back to wanking off ever again. 

Wiping the spit from his mouth with the back of his hand, Sherlock managed to say, “You need more fruit in your diet. Your semen tastes…pungent.” 

Tucking himself back into his pants and fastening his trousers, John asked him, “That wasn’t too bad, was it?” The question was legitimate. 

Sherlock shook his head, just a bit. “Not…not too bad.”

With his legs parted, John could see that Sherlock’s black trousers were tented with his arousal. After all the years of knowing him it was the first indication that Sherlock even had a sexuality. “Do you want me to…?” He gestured vaguely to the space between his legs and Sherlock looked as if unaware it was there.

He dismissed it with a wave of his hand. “No…no I’d rather not.”

“Not even after what you just did?”

“I like the denial.”

John wasn’t fully sure what to make of it but he didn’t question about it any further. “I have work in the morning,” he announced dully, sounding awkward and a bit stupid even to himself. 

“Be off, then.” Sherlock had caught his breath and was rubbing his index finger in a circle around his mouth now. His gaze was distant. It seemed so strange to end the interaction there. John opened his mouth to say something and Sherlock interrupted him. “I enjoyed it. Stop worrying yourself, it’s annoying.” 

They mumbled their goodnights to one another and John made his way up the stairs into his bedroom. His legs felt boneless. He remembered the way Sherlock moaned onto him, how he had defiled those pretty features with his perversity. John felt filthy, but then again, he thought, Sherlock was filthy too. Equally perverse. John slept peacefully and deeply for the first time in many weeks. Sherlock didn’t make any noise for the rest of the night.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Sherlock learns of sexual gratification.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This took preposterously long and I apologise because it's still not that great. Comments would be wonderful at this point. Thank you for all the subs and kudos. Cheers.

The last person to make John breakfast was a long-term girlfriend, the last one he ever had, and this occurred almost immediately prior to them splitting up. The calm before the storm, as it were. That was years ago, almost half a decade, but now Sherlock’s the one making him breakfast; he’s standing in the kitchen with his blue dressing gown swaying around the backs of his calves, eggs frying in a pan with the sound of angry snakes. The toaster rattles as it pops its contents up and Sherlock hisses when he takes the burnt bread between his fingers, dropping it onto a small white plate that John safely assumes is his own. It’s alien to see the kitchen in use. Neither of them knows how to cook and the only hot meals they eat that don’t come from takeaway are the result of their very generous landlady. 

John yawned. “Wha’s all this?” 

“Breakfast.” Sherlock took a spatula and placed two fried eggs on the plate then peppered them. Despite the brevity of it, Sherlock’s answer seemed genuine. He set everything at John’s place, the kitchen table looking strangely bare without the microscope and the vials of human blood and the hair samples, and poured him a cup of tea, doing so without expression. When he finished, he stood back and placed his hands behind him as if waiting for John to give a review. The whole thing felt wildly uncomfortable but John didn’t want to seem ungrateful so he sat and cut into his egg, using his toast to mop up the bright yellow guts. 

Everything tastes delicious, maybe just because John didn’t make it himself. “Thank you, this is very nice.”

Sherlock’s features betray nothing. “Any problems with it?” he asked.

John shook his head. “No, no it’s all fine.”

There was a pause. John’s fork clinks against the plate. Sherlock tells him, “Your toast is burnt.”

John looked down at it as if to check if this was true. The surface of the toast was almost black, a big jagged semi-circle cutting through the crust where he’d taken a bite out of it. “Oh. Well, it’s okay, I don’t mind.” He shrugged and smiled pleasantly up at the other. Who cared about a little burnt toast?

Sherlock’s expression changed, his brows lowering and his head tilting on his neck so that he looked positively quizzical, as if he’d expected John to toss it on the plate and act disgusted. When he didn’t, Sherlock turned to leave. “Right,” he said, and John got the distinct feeling that the comment wasn’t directed at him. 

There wasn’t any breakfast, burnt or otherwise, for him the next morning. When John left for work he stumbled and almost tripped right onto his face on a pair of Sherlock’s expensive shoes, so shiny that the light caught on them like the moon on the surface of a lake. Sherlock was in his sitting chair, face obscured by a book, his gaze seeming to come through the pages like a laser. 

“Did you leave your shoes here?”

Sherlock doesn’t answer. One leg is crossed over the other. The rising sun comes through the window and bathes his silhouette in red and yellow, little particles of dust floating around him like a million tiny faeries. 

John huffed, nudging the shoes out of the doorway with his foot. “Well, don’t do that,” he chides in response to the silence, like Sherlock is a bratty adolescent. “Should be home round half six. Try not to make a mess of the place.”

Sherlock’s expression is sour behind his book and as soon as the door’s closed he flings it onto the floor, wishing he’d thrown it at something fragile instead. 

There are human fingers in the fridge next to a head of lettuce. Sherlock somehow manages to lock the door to the toilet and then leaves the flat entirely, saying nothing, leaving John desperately needing to piss with nowhere to do it. He’s rude and overt and says terrible things about John and his sister and his work, and John has no idea where it’s coming from or what he should do about it or how he’s supposed to contain himself when Sherlock texts him at work saying that he went through John’s laptop and those are some interesting websites that he goes on, my my. 

John’s looking at bondage positions again and for some reason it’s harder to get off to the girls in the pictures. Their hands are tied together with the long rope encircling their wrists and their forearms, making criss-cross patterns across their skinny backs, their fists loose and their expressions wet and pleading, and for just a second John imagines his friend in that position, too. The jutting bones of his shoulder blades, the quivering of his abdomen, John imagines all of it. They haven’t talked about John putting his cock in Sherlock’s mouth. He doesn’t want them to. 

Early, early in the morning, John’s awoken because he smells the acrid scent of cigarette smoke all the way in his room upstairs. When he comes down, Sherlock’s pacing about in his pyjamas and looking wired. His hair is a lopsided, curly mess and he smells like sweat and insanity. A cigarette dangles between his index and middle fingers, threatening to drop to the floor and set the entire place aflame. He spoke to himself under his breath, the words pouring forth from his mouth in an unending deluge, a waterfall of unfiltered thoughts. Before John calls out to him he realises absently that Sherlock might not even be speaking in English.

“No!” he cried, reaching for the hand that grasped the cigarette. “No, no, no! What—what is this, why are you doing this?”

Sherlock’s holding his hand up and back, keeping the cigarette far out of John’s reach, almost silently prodding at the height difference between them. The smoke bends as his hand moves, rising to the ceiling. It stings John’s eyes. Sherlock doesn’t say anything, just takes a stumbling step backwards and looks at John as if surprised to see him. 

John collected himself with a few deep breaths, trying to control the mania that was raging inside him. He put his hand out, palm flat. “Sherlock, give it to me,” he ordered. The detective didn’t move. “ _Give it to me!_ ”

Sherlock straightened himself a bit, looking down his nose at John. “No,” he answered simply, shifting his weight onto his opposite foot, his body seeming abundant with energy, with defiance. 

He leapt, grabbing at Sherlock’s wrist and tugging his hand down, reaching for the cigarette, ash falling through the air with every movement, looking like grey snowfall. “Give it to me, you prick!” John snarled as Sherlock tried to tug his arm away, pulling John in a little circle as he tried to free himself. It looked as if the two of them were locked in a tango. 

Exasperated, John leaned down and pressed his teeth into Sherlock’s arm with an audible crunch. The detective cried out, his hand opening and the burning stick of tobacco falling to the floor, orange sparks dancing out onto the wood. John stomped on it with his bare foot, exclaiming at the sting of the cigarette against his skin. Sherlock managed to get his arm away, looking at the reddened crescent shape of John’s bite mark on his skin. 

“You barbarian!” Sherlock cried as John wiped the flakes of tobacco off his foot, the ball of his foot red from stomping on the burning ash. “A trained soldier and you’re reduced to biting like a bloody dog!”

“Bend over the sofa,” John ordered. The words were out of his mouth before he even realised that he’d said them. Sherlock furrowed his brows, just about as surprised as John was, but didn’t move. John repeated louder, “I said bend over the fucking sofa, Sherlock! _Now!_ ”

Even though he’s fussing and he’s telling John what an idiot he’s being, what a stupid sod, Sherlock does it. Sherlock’s hand are on the arm of the furniture, arms locked and extended so that his shoulder blades make sharp lines through the fabric of his dressing gown and John takes him by the collar, tugging him so that his face is on the cushions and he’s bent at the waist with his arse in the air. He lifts Sherlock’s robe, throwing it over his back and hooking his fingers in the waistband of his pyjama bottoms, pulling them down so they crumple in a heap around his ankles. Sherlock gasps at this, his body going rigid and his eyes becoming large, but he only squirmed in John’s grasp. He should have been able to get away, John had seen him wriggle himself from much more perilous and confining holds, but for some reason he doesn’t.

Sherlock’s pants are grey shorts that hug against his thighs, his legs long and slender but thickened with lean muscle from leaping and ducking, jumping over fences, kicking criminals in the jaw. It occurs to John that this is the first time he’s ever seen Sherlock’s pants before, in all the years they’ve known each other. Sherlock’s certainly seen John in his underwear before, seen him naked even, but those circumstances were accidental, they meant nothing. The modest underwear somehow seemed obscene on him, as overtly sexual as a woman in her panties. John could make out the crack of his arse, the curve that turned into his thighs. Sherlock squirmed, hips rocking, and the urge inside John became terrible.

In one go he’s removed them. Sherlock gasped quietly, the inward breath shaky and surprised, but he said nothing in response. His backside is as pale as the rest of him. White as snow. 

Before he knew it, John had pulled his hand back behind him and brought it down across the exposed skin, his hand making a satisfying crack as it collided with Sherlock’s backside. Sherlock bucked forward, a breathy _Ah!_ escaping his throat, but John held onto the collar of his shirt tightly as if keeping him on a reign. He expected Sherlock to say something, to ask him what he was doing or to at least complain, but he didn’t. John wound his hand back again. _Smack._ Sherlock grunts in pain and the sound is nothing less than erotic. 

“Do you know what you did wrong?” John asked him, his voice sounding low and devious to himself. Before Sherlock can answer he’s struck him again. The skin is blooming with redness, blushing from the force of John’s palm on him. It’s physical evidence that John was there, touching him, bringing him to edge of pain and back again a million times over. Sherlock mumbled something into the cushion, rubbing his face into it, palms pressed flat into the fabric. He doesn’t answer quickly enough and John hits him again, right on the fleshiest part of his rear, the skin quaking in response. It’s so firm against John’s hand, so tight and just barely curved with muscle and John has to physically restrain himself from groping at it. The hand on Sherlock’s collar moves to his hair, pulling hard enough on the thick handful that his face is lifted from the cushion. Again, John asks, “Why are you being punished, Sherlock?”

“I smoked in the flat!” he replied, his baritone voice gravelly with strain. John hits him. He wails. Sherlock’s hips move back towards John and from where he’s standing he can see Sherlock’s cock standing halfway hard between his legs. For some reason the sight of it surprises him, less because he’s hard while being spanked and more as if he foolishly thought Sherlock to be incapable of erection entirely. 

The spanking became harder and faster, each strike happening one right after the other in a quick, unrelenting succession. Each smack of his hand was accompanied by a word from John and by an attempted tug on the part of Sherlock who grunted and growled when he was spanked, crying out when his hair was pulled. They rocked back and forth against each other, momentum building in John’s arm until the spanking was occurring in one continuous motion, his hand moving round and round in an elliptical shape; into the air, against Sherlock’s skin, into the air and back again. 

_”Do! Not! Smoke! In! This! Flat!”_ John snarls through his teeth. Sherlock’s cries are one long yowl now, a continuous groan punctuated by hiccups of pain. When he’s finished, he’s panting just about as much as Sherlock is, his hand stinging and as red as Sherlock’s backside. Bruises are already starting to form over the pert flesh, yellow and purple nebulas over the cosmos of his skin. John released his hair and Sherlock stood up immediately, the gown falling and covering his abused rear. As he pulled up his pants and pyjama bottoms John could have sworn he heard something that might have been Sherlock crying. The elastic band of his clothing brushes against Sherlock’s arse and the man makes an audible sound of pain, the tiniest whimper that John’s ever heard in his entire life. 

John took a step backwards, looking at Sherlock’s back, the way his fists were clenched down by his sides. He looked like an angry, embarrassed little child. Even though something dreadful and regretful was burning behind his teeth, he cleared his throat and demanded, “I want you to apologise for smoking in the flat.”

Sherlock took a stuttering breath inwards, long and slow. He head was bowed. When he spoke, his deep voice trembled. “I’m sorry I smoked in the flat,” he muttered. 

The admittance of guilt cleared the air a bit. John felt as if he’d been fortified with steel. As if testing his new strength, he declared, “You’ve been unruly this whole week, I’m taking your laptop privileges away.”

Sherlock spun around and John could see that his eyes were wide and wet. His voice was edged with panic. “No, you can’t, I need that for work.”

“Fine, then…then you have to ask me whenever you want to have a cigarette. Get your pack and bring it to me.”

The entire act seemed to pain him terribly. Sherlock was chewing on the inside of his bottom lip, his gaze avoiding John’s, when he brought his pack of cigarettes from his bedroom and placed them in John’s flattened palm. “What if I want one and you’re not here?” he asked.

“Then you don’t get one. Is this all of them?”

“Yes.”

John looked up at him testily, raising his brows as if to say _I don’t believe you_. “If I find any more I’m going to spank you again. I don’t care how sore you are.”

After a moment’s hesitation and a resigned huff, Sherlock pulled two more cigarettes out of the pocket of his dressing gown, shoving them into John’s hand, snapping one of them in half in the process. John tucked them into the carton. “Will you lie down on the sofa for me?” he asked. 

“What now? You’ve already punished me, you don’t just get to have a swing at me for no reason!”

He protested, “No, that’s not…I just want to put something on you so it doesn’t hurt so badly. I think I have something in my kit.”

When Sherlock sat, he winced and his mouth twitched visibly in discomfort. John hid Sherlock’s cigarettes upstairs (knowing very well that he could find them with a single glance about the room) and brought down what resembled a rectangular case of medical supplies. It had been useful to them before, when John accompanied him on his more perilous adventures. He’d had to pry a bullet out of Sherlock’s calf before, put broken fingers in splints, stemmed off blood seeping from a wound in his upper arm. At no point when he was gathering materials did he consider that he might have to use them this way. 

Sherlock laid on his belly with his hips on John’s lap. He hissed in displeasure when John pulled down his clothing to reveal his very bruised and red backside. His skin was a canvas of brilliant suffering, painted with all the colours of pain. The bruises bloomed across him like a garden of black and purple flowers, creation and destruction existing in one single moment. John had almost felt Sherlock crack beneath him, as if he was striking the ego that covered him and splintering it until it fell to the ground like a hail of glass. And beneath it Sherlock laid, bleeding in the remains of his destroyed self. Maybe John had been destroyed, too.

John took a plastic tube of clear ointment and squeezed out the gel onto his fingers, ghosting the digits over the battered flesh with as much gentleness and care as he could gather. Sherlock inhaled sharply through his nose at the touch but said nothing, his face buried in his arms. The skin was becoming shiny with the application of medicine. With his free hand he stroked Sherlock’s hair softly, the other man stiffening against the contact then relaxing suddenly, allowing John to be tender with him.

“Don’t treat me like a child,” Sherlock chided softly, having lost a bit of his gusto. From his current position that struck John as particularly funny.

He answered, “Don’t assume that I am. Besides,” he added, a bit of a smirk crossing his features, “you make a much better pet than anything else. Sort of a…petulant house cat, or something.”

Sherlock actually laughed at this, turning his head so that his cheek resting on his folded arms. The place where John had struck him across the face was fully healed now. “Really?” He shifted a bit, hips wriggling on John’s lap. The movement was too enticing for his own good. “I suppose I don’t mind the sound of that. To not think for a while. To just…be.”

John smiled to himself, hand resting on Sherlock’s hip. The bone felt hard and prominent beneath his skin. “You know,” he began, “I think you’ve been acting up on purpose.”

It was Sherlock’s turn to smirk. His eyes closed, lashes looking as black as pitch against his skin, his smugness looked sweet and playful. “Clever, aren’t you?” He’d had enough of John’s touches, pulling up his clothing, turning over and whispering _ow_ to himself as his sensitive backside shifted against John’s legs. His eyes looked bright as they darted about, looking at the ceiling. “My, aren’t we just perverse?” he sighed, hands folded over his chest.

“Maybe. Probably.” John found himself rubbing Sherlock’s thigh, feeling those tight muscles beneath the fabric of his pyjamas. His fingers were treading into dangerous territory, playing on the boundary where his thigh became his groin. “I think you enjoyed it more than I did,” he said, the very suggestion of it feeling dangerous.

Sherlock paused. “I suppose I did.”

“Is this the sort of thing you masturbate to?”

“I don’t masturbate.”

Somehow this isn’t shocking. “Alright. Have you ever…I mean, have you ever even had sex before? Or had an orgasm? I can’t imagine not ever having a wank. I’d go mad.”

“I know you would,” he replied, his voice flat. “I’ve had sex twice. Once with a man, once with a woman. I don’t think any of us particularly enjoyed it. I’ve had an orgasm maybe half a dozen times, all during adolescence, I think.”

John winced at the thought of it. There was a button on the front of Sherlock’s trousers and John touched it hesitantly, circling his finger around it. It was the closest he had ever been to Sherlock physically, even closer than when Sherlock’s mouth was on him. This seemed so much more intimate. So much more of them was exposed. “That sounds…positively dreadful.”

There’s a pregnant pause between them. The flat seemed so still, like all the world had paused except for them. “You can do it if you’d like.”

“What?”

Sherlock clicked his tongue in annoyance. “Stop playing coy with me. You’re not even making an attempt to hide it.” Sherlock took the hand hovering over his groin and pressed it down, letting John feel him through his pyjamas. There wasn’t any stiffness or resistance against John’s palm.

“You’re not hard,” he observed.

Sherlock said, “Then do something to change that.”

If he wasn’t mistaken, Sherlock actually seemed eager. The detective settled himself on John’s lap, pulsing his hips up just a bit against the hand as if to invite him to touch. Sherlock really did look like a kitten then, his hands resting lazily on his chest, head cocked to the side just a bit as he watched John uncertainly palming his groin, feeling his partner’s flaccid penis through his clothing and taking it into his hand. Sherlock’s index finger lazily brushed his nipple through his shirt, the little button stiffening, becoming visible through the fabric. 

In that moment John thinks of all the times that he’s imagined doing something like this to Sherlock, or Sherlock doing something like this to him. He remembers masturbating and pretending that it was Sherlock’s hand on him, coming all over himself and imagining forcing Sherlock to lick the mess up, how ashamed he had been afterwards, how he had felt that he had disrespected one of his only friends. But now Sherlock was asking him to do it, making his nipple pebble beneath the touch of his own hand, playing with himself just a bit to get one or both of them going. Unless those other partners he mentioned did this to him as well, and John doubts it, then John is the first person ever to touch Sherlock this way. The thought of that is more exciting than anything else.

When John pulls down Sherlock’s pyjamas he can see that Sherlock’s already begun to stiffen inside his pants, the organ forming a bulge in the front of the material. John cupped his palm around it, rubbing over it, for some reason surprised by the sensation of it hardening beneath his touch. He can feel it swelling, becoming thicker and longer, and when he removes his hand there’s a noticeable dark spot near the head. Sherlock breathes slow and steady, raising himself up on his elbows to get a look at what John’s doing. He seems surprised too. 

His prick is tenting the material nicely now and John asks him, “Do you like that?” Sherlock nods yes and John’s hand circles around it, gripping him through the fabric and stroking him from base to tip, squeezing out the precome from his cock just so he can see the cotton of his pants becoming filthy with Sherlock’s desire. The fact that Sherlock acts as if this is so new, as if he’d never been touched by even his own hand, makes it all the more enticing for John. John, who never cared about shagging virgins or even losing his own virginity, thinks that watching as he strips Sherlock raw is the single sexiest experience of his life. 

He pulls the grey pants down beneath Sherlock’s prick and bollocks, the organ so hard that it bounces to attention, its owner shuddering and moaning softly at the sensation of cool air touching him. Sherlock’s cock is long and dark and unlike John, he’s circumcised. John wonders abstractly if this is the result of the obvious age difference between them, or maybe a difference in social class. The head is shiny with wetness, another bead forming on the slit. John smears it around the tip with his thumb causing Sherlock to buck his hips upward, his breathing already quickening with his arousal. 

“Don’t be so impatient,” John chided playfully, taking the length into his fist, feeling the pulse of Sherlock’s heartbeat in the thick vein that wrapped around his eager, needy prick. Sherlock pressed his lips together, the muscles of his torso quivering and contracting with his barely-contained excitement. With his free hand, John held his hips down, allowing himself complete control over every second of stimulation. 

When John finally moved, the response was instantaneous; Sherlock seemed to melt back into the sofa, one of his hands pawing absently at John’s arm. His cock wept, soaked with his own fluids as John worked his hand over him. John watched as his partner’s chest heaved slowly, the other clearly trying to control himself. He spit on the palm of his hand and used that additional bit of wetness as a makeshift lubricant, speeding up the pumping of his fist, watching as Sherlock’s cock grew seemingly redder and fatter with every stroke. He could smell Sherlock’s lust, the distinct aroma of sex that radiated from his groin, the skin of his prick, his dark pubic hair. 

“Good boy,” he praised in a soft voice. “You like my hand on your cock, don’t you?” 

Sherlock moaned John’s name into the air, his legs parting just a bit. At the sight of it, John used his free hand to cup under Sherlock’s testicles, rolling them in his palm, rubbing his thumb over them. Something like a whimper and moan fused together creaks out from Sherlock’s throat. Whenever he swallows John can see the muscles of his throat constricting, his adam’s apple bobbing and trembling with his excitement. John’s own cock is pressed hard against Sherlock’s arse, the only stimulation coming from the twitches and movements of Sherlock’s hips.

“Oh, god,” Sherlock moaned, the sound of it indicating that he was already close to completion, his own inexperience shoving him close to that edge and threatening to toss him off. “J-John…”

“Sit up, look,” John instructed him, his voice lowered to a whisper. “I want you to see yourself when you come. Look for me.”

Sherlock does. He sits up and opens his eyes, looking down at his pulsing cock in John’s hand. His delicate, sharp features weaken, the sounds of his panting deepening and quickening, and with one final cry, Sherlock thrust up into John’s hand, emptying his load onto the fist around him. His come is thick and white, the bulk of it coming out of him in three big, fat squirts that coat John’s fingers and splatter onto Sherlock’s night shirt. John carefully squeezes his testicles, thumb pressing into his cock, working out the last few stubborn drops so they pool on his tip and drip down the length of his softening erection.

“Good boy,” John praised again as Sherlock’s lulled around on the couch cushion, his eyes half-lidded and his pink lips parted. “Such a good boy.”

John retrieved a small towel and wiped off his hand, cleaning off Sherlock as well. The man’s seed was drying on his shirt, sticky and crusty on the cotton. “We’ll lift your shirt up next time,” John tells him and Sherlock nods lazily. _I’m the only one who’s ever made him feel like this,_ John thinks. No one but Sherlock’s made him feel the way he does in that moment either.

In the coming days, whenever Sherlock sits down he will think of John. His body aches and hungers, pain that he likes and he doesn’t know why, all of his physical sensations, they remind him of John. Their minds and bodies are tethered. They’re no longer islands. Somehow, Sherlock isn’t afraid of this. For the first and only time in his life, he’s bound.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sherlock surrenders some of that pompous stoicism in favour of being a common house pet. Eroticism ensues.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Finally, after five chapters (and a long pause between updates) the pet play actually begins. Thank you for all the feedback. More is always welcome. Enjoy.

It takes nine days, but Sherlock eventually comes to him. John realises that even though he had expected this it still feels utterly surreal to him. If in some other universe another Sherlock was born with all of his person and life in tact, everything but that brilliant intellect so that he was cursed with an ordinary mind, he would still have had that romantic darkness about him, the richness of his upbringing, and the power of his great family’s social influence. Sherlock learned French at four in a room with great, long windows that brought slender rays of sun into his home, a home so splendid and luxurious that it seemed like fairytale castle to John, who had only known humility and simplicity throughout both his childhood and adult life. Everything about Sherlock was superior, as if he had been bred for that specific purpose. To think that he would purposefully submit that aristocratic pride to John’s proletariat hand was almost like a cruel joke.

 

John was stirring some vegetables in a pan for supper, and there was Sherlock, standing in the doorway in his tattered dressing gown and his inside-out night shirt looking juvenile and needy even before he said anything. If he hadn’t spoken John wouldn’t have known he was there.

 

“You said something about being a pet. I want to do that.”

 

It’s the timing of it that takes John by surprise more than the message itself, but, John thinks to himself, that’s Sherlock all over.

 

The peppers and mushrooms sizzled in the pan, a hot bubble of oil popping and snapping on John’s knuckle. “I don’t know,” he answered. “I’ve thought about it and…I just don’t think you’d enjoy it.”

 

“Why?” The tone of it is borderline offended.

 

Turning the heat off the stove, John said, “I once told you to wash the dishes in the sink and you were outraged because the task was beneath you somehow.” Hot steam was rising up from the red and the green and the grey in the pan. John put a bit of rice in a bowl and scooped the vegetables on top of it. “Do you know what a pet is? It’s lesser, below human. It’s humiliating, which is the point.”

 

Sherlock was silent for a moment. His hands down by his side and his expression soft and open, John thought he looked like a child. “I want to do that,” he repeated.

 

Sitting at the table, John scraped a pepper from his fork with his teeth. His brows were furrowed. _“…Why?”_

 

With a little huff from his nose that made Sherlock seem like a cartoon bull, he clenched his fists and retorted, “I’m sorry, do I need a psychiatric evaluation before I engage in a consensual adult activity with you? I’m telling you I want to indulge you in one of your favourite fantasies, as evidenced by the pictures on your phone and computer—oh, don’t give me that look--, you can either say _yes, Sherlock, I want to play with you_ or _no, I don’t._ ”

 

For some reason the word _play_ feels grotesque to John but he ignores it. “It’s not unreasonable to know why you want to do something, Sherlock.”

 

“And it’s not unreasonable for me to withhold that, or to say there is no reason, I just want to do it.” Something crosses Sherlock’s face that makes him chew on his bottom lip. It almost looks as if he’s going to say _please._ He’s like a persistent child, and somehow the bratty behaviour doesn’t look out of place on him. “Do you want to do it or not?”

 

“Christ!” John exclaimed through half a mouthful of rice. “Fine! Drop to your knees and crawl over here, then.”

 

Silence rang between them like an inaudible bell. Sherlock looked at John blankly, blinking once, slowly. “I…what?”

 

Not looking at him, John repeated, “Get on your hands and knees and come over by my feet, unless you know of a housecat that walks on its hind legs.”

 

On the other side of the kitchen Sherlock seemed to look around himself. It was like he was checking to make sure the whole thing wasn’t just some big jest at his expense, as if John’s friends were hiding in the cupboards and under the sink waiting to spring out as soon as his hands hit the floor to laugh at him. He brushed the open fabric of his robe behind him, the gown swaying back behind his calf as if blow by  a gentle gust of wind, and dropped down to the knee, then the other, moving slowly as if the task was incredibly physically arduous. He lowered his hands to the floor, palms pressing into the tiles, fingers bending testily. The navy gown draped over his backside and for just a moment John allowed himself to imagine that a long black tail poked out from underneath.

 

Sherlock kept his face to the floor as he crawled over to John. Perhaps, John considered, Sherlock hadn’t fully understood the meaning of humility. When was the last time Sherlock was humbled? If it wasn’t John’s hand on his arse, spanking him like he was a misbehaving child, then it was never. The prince, the brat, had never known humility, and so rarely since he had left the military had John been one to enforce it. When Sherlock was crouched by his chair, John put his hand out in front of his face, knuckles at his nose, hardly looking at him as he ate.

 

“Rub your face against my hand,” he ordered. To his surprise, Sherlock did. The hard press of his cheekbones brushed against John’s fingers, his head turning as if spreading his scent all over John’s hand. He felt Sherlock’s lips, too, and the shape of his nose, and all the things that could have belonged to him.

 

John combed his fingers through Sherlock’s curls, thumb tracing the oval shell of his ear, the shape of his jaw. Sherlock made a sound that might have been a meow.

 

“Lick my fingers,” John instructed, no longer eating but hardly looking at the other man either. He eyes were large and focused on the doorway, staring at nothing as his attention shifted into the sensations of his hand. There was a moment of hesitation and then suddenly his fingers were warm and wet, Sherlock’s tongue strong but gentle as it separated the digits, coaxing them one by one into his mouth where he sucked them softly until they were all slick with his spit. He took John’s middle finger all the way to the base knuckle, the place where his finger merged with his palm, and John could feel the pillowy tightness of Sherlock hollowing his cheeks around the digit.

 

When John looked down at him Sherlock’s face had softened and somehow he looked younger, as if the edges of his vicious intellect had been filed down, all his sharpness worn away.  The years melted from him until he seemed to exist in a place between youth and adulthood, a sort of Neverland where his mind and his body no longer needed to correspond. And John suspected that they had never corresponded, that Sherlock had been intelligent beyond his years for his entire life, and that this purposeful devolution came with an effortlessness that surprised even him.

 

His spine arched, his back lifting towards the ceiling, and Sherlock kissed the knuckles of John’s hand, glancing up at him with his large, deep eyes. He nipped playfully at John’s skin, his little teeth tugging at the flesh just above the tendon of John’s index finger.

 

“Good boy,” John praised, and Sherlock seemed to dissolve a bit. He tilted his head, exposing his long, pale neck, and invited John to stroke the slender expanse of skin. If Sherlock could have purred, he would have.

 

John’s bowl of supper was only half eaten and he felt a distinct disinterest in finishing it. “Have you eaten yet?” he asked.

 

“No.”

 

He moved around the veg and rice with his fork before taking the bowl into his free hand and setting it on the floor in front of Sherlock. The pet looked down at it and then back up at John. “I need a fork,” he said.

 

John replied, “No, you don’t.”

 

There was a moment where John was nearly positive that Sherlock was going to refuse. He would shake his head and have a strop and go do something loud and obnoxious just to frustrate John. But he didn’t; something belligerent in Sherlock’s mind seemed to lie down and expose its belly. Sherlock slowly lowered his face into the bowl, his shoulder blades sharp and prominent through his dressing gown, and lapped up a small tongueful of rice. The sound of his chewing and swallowing was soft and wet. He took a pepper into his mouth and it crunched between his teeth. His face was almost hidden inside the bowl and he would certainly have a mess around his mouth when he was finished. Filthy on the outside, covered in his own mess.

 

John stroked his back as he ate, the ridges of his vertebrae hard beneath his touch. “Good boy,” he praised softly, his voice barely a whisper. Sherlock’s fingers were curled towards his palm on the floor. “Good boy.”

 

His hand strayed to the curve of Sherlock’s backside. Every pulsing beat of John’s heart was already sending his blood into his groin, the place between his legs red hot with desire and straining against the rigid fabric of his jeans. He didn’t bother to hide it now and didn’t waste time feeling embarrassed about it. He could feel Sherlock’s tailbone through his gown, through his sleep trousers, his ring finger riding that hard bone at the start of the cleft in Sherlock’s ass. If Sherlock minded he said nothing to stop him.

 

The flesh of his backside was firm and pleasingly round, a nice little shapely pillow on Sherlock’s skinny body. John cupped his palm around one of the cheeks and squeezed it. He wanted to slap Sherlock on the ass. He wanted to throw up his gown over his backside and pull his trousers down and feel the contact of skin on skin. On the internet John had seen these plugs with animal tails attached and he imagined shoving one inside Sherlock’s body, stretching him with his fingers and feeling that tight hole clench around him before stuffing him with the thick plug and watching him squirm as the feline tail shook between his legs. The tip of John’s finger dipped into that clothed split of Sherlock’s ass as if trying to feel his most private, unexplored area through his clothing, and Sherlock sat up suddenly, causing John to withdraw his hand. The bowl of supper was empty.

 

With a slow, controlled inhale, John put his hands on his knees. Sherlock was cleaning his face and he was doing even that like a cat, licking the back of his hand wiping away the greasy oil and the bits of rice from his chin. He was doing it even though it was illogical, even though it didn’t make any sense to clean his face like that. Sherlock wasn’t a cat, Sherlock didn’t have rough little beads on his tongue that would cleanse his skin of dirt and mess, and he wasn’t covered in fur and he wasn’t supposed to be eating off the floor in the first place, but he was doing it, he was doing all of it and wasn’t even questioning it. For some reason John wanted to believe Sherlock was doing it for him. That was even more illogical.

 

“That was…good,” John stammered. There’s a thin film of sweat on his forehead. He wipes it off with the back of his hand. “I’d be lying if I said I had something else planned.”

 

Readjusting a few loose curls, Sherlock answered, “That’s fine. I think I’ve had enough anyway.”

 

“Was that okay?”

 

“Are you going to ask that every time?”

 

“Yes, get used to it.” John picked up the bowl from the floor and took it to the sink. The water from the tap ricocheted off the curved bottom and splashed onto the counter. John’s erection was so hard against his thigh that it felt as if he was going to rip through his jeans. It pulsed uncomfortably against his leg and he knew that his pants were going to be smeared with the wetness of his arousal when he changed into his pyjamas. When he stole a look at Sherlock, still sitting back on his calves and looking like some sort of Egyptian statue of feline worship, there was nothing between his legs or otherwise to suggest that he was aroused.

 

Finally, over the sound of the water, Sherlock answered, “It was okay. I liked it. I would do it again, though I hope you’re not going to make me eat every time.”

 

“Probably not. Might help if you ate more than four times a week.”

 

Rising to his naked feet, Sherlock groaned in annoyance. “Boring, takes up too much time that could be spent doing other things.” He stretched his back, raising his hands up towards the ceiling and clenching his fists a few times as the length of his spinal column cracked. “If we’re quite done I’ll be in my room.”

 

Turning back to him for a second, John said, “Oh—yeah, we are.”

 

Sherlock’s body twitched forward as if he was going to move, but he didn’t. He mouth performed an entire cycle of opening and closing before he cleared his throat and asked, “Erm…May I…” He seemed to swallow. “…have a cigarette?”

 

John blinked and looked at him with large, soft eyes for a moment. It took him longer than he had intended to answer. “Ah—yeah. Yeah, you can have one. They’re up in my room, just smoke it outside.”

 

Even though he’s sure Sherlock already knew this, Sherlock gave him a grateful nod and left the kitchen, his body long and straight. Even the sound of his footsteps was cautious. John cleaned the dishes in silence. When he counts the cigarettes later only one is missing.

 

 

 

 

Sherlock left his bedroom and stood in front of John in his shorts and t-shirt, looking about as uneasy as John felt. His skin looked exceptionally white against the dark fabric, a lily blooming through a crack in asphalt. When John had returned from the clinic that evening Sherlock asked him almost immediately upon entering the flat if he would play again. The word still perturbed him, but John was tired and horny and a little bit lonely, so he agreed. He asked Sherlock to get into something cat-like (whatever that meant) and the close-fitting pyjama-like clothing choice seemed just about as close as they were going to get. John wasn’t about to admit that he had no idea what he was doing, but he was sure that Sherlock was aware of that already.

 

“Alright,” John answered from the couch with a little nod, the knuckle of his index finger resting against his lips. “Drop to your hands and knees now.”

 

Sherlock obeyed. His back was curved in his animal position, looking long and slender and very feline. Without John even asking, he crawled over to John’s knee and rubbed his face and hair against it. A small, distinct _miao_ squeaked from between Sherlock’s plump little lips. If John wasn’t mistaken, it looked very much like Sherlock was enjoying himself.

 

He patted the empty cushion beside him with a flattened hand. “You wanna come up and lie down with me?” he asked and the kitty mewled softly in response. Front paws first then one knee after the other, never leaving his four little legs, Sherlock crawled up onto the sofa, rubbing his cheeks against John’s shoulder affectionately. John was unable to suppress a smile, ruffling Sherlock’s curly hair playfully. The pet caught the collar of John’s shirt between his teeth and tugged, pawing at the stretching fabric with his loose fist. John wriggled his fingers beneath Sherlock’s underarms and the man laughed, positively _laughed_ , and John became acutely aware that it was the first time he had heard Sherlock sounding legitimately happy in at least three years.

 

Sherlock’s body was firm beneath John’s hands. He felt the inward taper of Sherlock’s ribs, how flat and hard his chest felt, how taut his belly was, and when John pressed his fingertips into the hard square of his hips the pet actually shook them a bit, rocking them from side to side between John’s hands.

 

John hummed as Sherlock nipped at his shirt, catching John’s clothed nipple between his teeth and nibbling at it, leaving a little wet spot where his mouth had been. The touch was electric, sending a bolt of lightning from the area of contact down into his cock, hardening him, making him thick and rigid against the confines of his trousers. John rubbed at the rising bulge in his clothing shamelessly, figuring to himself that if Sherlock was allowed to enjoy himself then so was he. The kitty leaned into his owner’s neck, kissing and biting at the skin there, swirling his soft tongue around the strong line of tendon beneath John’s flesh. His curled hand rested on John’s upper thigh, precariously and not unintentionally close to the heat of his owner’s groin.

 

Sherlock was tugging at John’s clothing now, pulling at the sleeves of his shirt as if he trying to undress him with his mouth. Sometimes he would meow and purr and make small, needy squeaks, dipping his head down and licking at John’s exposed navel. John had never had this much attention of him ever, especially not sexual attention, and as awkward as he felt it was a welcome change from the years of intense loneliness.

 

“Can I rub your belly, kitty?” he murmured into his pet’s ear, holding onto Sherlock’s waist and swiping his thumb over the area. Sherlock dropped back onto his calves and turned himself over, resting his head on John’s lap. He tilted his slender chin up and invited John to pet the sensitive area, his hands tucked up against his chest. John stroked him with the back of his hand before lifting his partner’s black shirt and revealing his abdomen.

 

His body was tight and long, his belly only lightly defined with musculature. The bones of his pelvis jutted dramatically, a small space formed between his pants and his skin as if the fabric were propped up by the skeleton. John brought his fingers down the centre line of Sherlock’s body, circling around his small, oval navel, watching as the muscles of his abdomen twitched and shuddered at the touch. Sherlock was hard in his shorts, pulsing his narrow hips up as if to encourage John to touch him. John thought to himself that he had introduced Sherlock to this when he wrapped his fist around the neglected, needy prick, and now Sherlock was insatiable, lying on his lap and mewling like an animal in heat. He imagined the man, so reserved, so stoic and prideful, violently masturbating to the memory of John bringing him off on the sofa, his posh persona broken over John’s knee like a plank of wood.

 

Smirking, John lifted the waistband of Sherlock’s pants to get a look at the organ inside. The head was already red with desire, the thickened length fighting against the constraints of the shorts. John blew on it gently and Sherlock whimpered, a clear bead of wetness oozing from the slit. He released the band and left his kitty’s sex untouched.

 

Sherlock practically wept at the denial, not speaking any sort of human language but instead whining and crying with small, high noises that were so unlike his usual self, that baritone voice locked away and stored only for low purrs and sighs. He spread his legs lewdly, pawing at John’s chest with one of his hands pathetically. Never once did he move to touch the needy organ himself.

 

John shushed him softly, taking the paw by the wrist and kissing the bent fingers, his free hand rubbing large, slow circles around his shuddering tummy. “I know, I know,” he cooed. “You want it so badly. It feels so good to be touched there.” Sherlock had managed to turn his upper half towards John, biting gently at the flesh of his side. It sounded as if he was trying not to cry. John tapped him on the shoulder briskly. “Alright, get up, get on your hands and knees.”

 

The pet obeyed, returning to his feral position on the sofa cushions, stretching his back upwards as he waited for John’s next command. John told him to lower his face to the couch and he did.

 

His pert little arse was in the air, clothed only by the tight, somewhat stretchy fabric of his shorts. John placed the heels of both his hands on it, pressing into the rounded, firm flesh. Sherlock was undiscovered territory, he was a new, uninhabited island  off the coast of wherever and John was the only person in the entire world, in the entire cosmos in all its splendour, to have ever, ever conquered it. He drew his index finger down the visible cleft of Sherlock’s backside, one hand steady on his thigh.

 

“You said you’ve had sex with a man before,” John recalled, his voice heavy with amorous desire. Sherlock made a small sound that might have been affirmation. “Did he do this to you? Touch you here?”

 

Against the couch, Sherlock nodded. “Finger,” he answered.

 

“Just one?”

 

He nodded.

 

“Did you like it?”

 

There was a pause. The wait was torturous for John. Sherlock finally replied, “No.”

 

John leaned his mouth in and kissed him on his tailbone. “Let’s try something else, then.”

 

His fingers tucking into the waistband, John slowly pulled the fabric down Sherlock’s thighs, revealing the tight mounds of ivory flesh to himself teasingly, taking in the curves and hills and angles of Sherlock’s body with the utmost appreciation. Sherlock was a work of art, a charcoal masterpiece, Venus de Milo, _Venus in Furs._ With his bottom lip caught between his teeth, John used his thumbs and spread Sherlock’s buttocks apart. The pet made a small sound of uncertainty and John hushed him softly, soothing him.

 

Sherlock’s hole was dark pink and twitching, puckered and tightly closed. He wondered how Sherlock had reacted to the finger inside him at that point, if maybe he had sat there with an indifferent expression on his face, the two of them playing in uncomfortable silence. _None of us enjoyed it,_ Sherlock had said. How terrible, John thought.

 

It hadn’t occurred to Sherlock what John might do then and the presence of his tongue against the exposed opening caused him to whimper and wriggle, inadvertently pushing his hips back against the wet muscle squirming against his arsehole. John moved the very tip around the puckered entrance, feeling the texture of it against his tongue. When Sherlock moved too much he whispered _hold still_ and placed his open mouth on it, his tongue working in a determined, wet circle around the rim. He kissed and sucked at it, moving his soft lips against this hardly touched area, overwhelming the abundant nerve endings with the touch of his mouth. Sherlock’s hands were pressing hard into the couch cushion, his eyes half lidded and his mouth open in a continuous, stuttering moan at John ate at his sensitive little arsehole.

 

John hummed through the work of his mouth, enjoying the twitch of the muscle on his tongue, the way it inadvertently opened for him and let him jam himself inside farther, the tip of his tongue wriggling just beyond the boundary of Sherlock’s body. John was inside him, tasting him, pleasing him, and Sherlock was helpless but to let himself wail against the onslaught of pleasure.

 

His cock was rock hard in his black pants, the front of the fabric soaking wet with precome. No one had ever been so close to him, and the sensation of the finger that had been inside him once was just a distant, irrelevant memory compared to what John was doing to him now. Sherlock’s mouth was an open O, his entire body trembling at the sensation between his legs. He spread his thighs, allowing John more access to the inside of his body. A fire was burning inside his belly, a deliriously wonderful pressure that built inside his cock and his bollocks and threatened to make a big, sticky mess of him. For some reason his brain conjured the image of himself licking his own white filth off the cushions and he groaned pathetically.

 

“Good boy,” John hissed in between long, thorough licks. “Good boy, you like it when I taste your asshole.” He snaked his arms around Sherlock’s thighs and pulled himself as close as possible, his eyes closed and his mouth working relentlessly on fucking that tight little hole.

 

Sherlock was about to lose himself. He was gasping, panting and moaning and wailing as his orgasm burned inside of him, wanting out. His moans shortened into short, staccato whimpers of _oh, oh, oh_ , and just before he coated the inside of his pants in his come, John released him, pulling his face back and wiping off his mouth with the back of his hand.

 

“I think that’s enough for now,” he decided, the pungent taste of Sherlock’s body still heavy on his tongue.

 

Sherlock groaned openly, begging with his very human words now. “ _Argh_ , god, John, _please!”_ he pleaded. “Please, John, please!” It felt like his testicles were about to burst, like his cock would split from how hard it was. John pat him on one of his arse cheeks softly.

 

“How strange,” he mused aloud. “I don’t recall cats being able to talk. What a marvel you are!”

 

In desperation, Sherlock hopped up, turned around, and placed his curled hands on John’s shoulders, nudging his head against John’s face, his voice trembling and shuddering. “Please…please, John, it hurts, I need it…”

 

John kissed Sherlock on the cheek sympathetically, rubbing his face back against him. “I know it does,” he replied, hands on Sherlock’s tiny waist. “You’re so hard, and so needy, and you were such a good pet today. But I need to know that you’re going to be a good pet even when I’m not bringing you off. Do you understand?”

 

Sherlock moaned in pain. It had never been like this before, he had never been so close. The place between his arse cheeks was wet and he could feel the pulse of his need in veins of his cock. He whimpered, his voice weak, “Please, John…Anything, I’ll do _anything._ ”

 

“If you’ll do anything, then you’ll wait,” John answered, his kiss now moving to the corner of Sherlock’s mouth.

 

“How long?” he asked, looking down at the tent in his pants. It would have only taken a few strokes, just a few quick touches of his own hand.

 

Kissing him softly wherever his mouth could reach, John replied, “Three days. We’ll try again in three days.”

 

Somehow, Sherlock waited. 


End file.
